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Topic: Parallelogram (Read 5258 times) |
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James Fingas
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Re: Parallelogram
« Reply #25 on: Jan 9th, 2003, 12:47pm » |
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I guess that's true, but to check if you can make a triangle with |a-c|, b, and d, you need to know which is bigger of b and d. Whereas I'm assuming that you'll check to see if you can make a quadrilateral before you try to make a trapezoid. Either way, there are two checks you must make, and I find the comparison of |a-c| with |b-d| quite intuitive.
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towr
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Re: Parallelogram
« Reply #26 on: Jan 9th, 2003, 12:55pm » |
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on Jan 9th, 2003, 12:47pm, James Fingas wrote:| I guess that's true, but to check if you can make a triangle with |a-c|, b, and d, you need to know which is bigger of b and d. |
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Actually you don't..
b-d <= |b-d| and
d-b <= |b-d|
so if |b-d| <= |a-c| both are satisfied, and either d-b, or b-d is |b-d| so there's only two checks needed to see if you can form a triangle..
intuitively, you only need to know if b and d 'hinged' (changing the angle between b and d) can be smaller (or equal) and bigger (or equal) than |a-c|
Quote:| Whereas I'm assuming that you'll check to see if you can make a quadrilateral before you try to make a trapezoid. |
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Depends on what's asked, really.. but normally yes..
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| « Last Edit: Jan 9th, 2003, 12:56pm by towr » |
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